From Malthus to planetary boundaries: the genealogy of ‘carrying capacity’ as a political technology

Abstract

How much is too much? The concept ‘carrying capacity’, believed to be first employed in the context of shipping in the nineteenth century, became a key element of Neo-Malthusianism of the 1960s and 1970s, which aimed to curb surplus populations against the backdrop of looming ecological collapse. Adopting an approach that merges a Foucauldian governmentality perspective with Science and Technology Studies (STS) sensitivities, the article investigates the lively genealogy of how ecologists and economists approached the ‘population problem’ through ‘capacity thinking’ to envisage, model, and predict planetary futures. By examining several discursive constellations from the 1920s to the 2000s, the paper illuminates the ascendancy of ‘carrying capacity’ as a ‘fixed ideal’ and a ‘political technology’ that traverses scientific disciplines and societal discourses. This exploration unfolds the presumably simultaneous economization of the environment vis-à-vis the environmentalization of economics, cautioning against claims of a hybridization of these interlinked yet distinct processes. This retro- and prospective analysis unfolds both the ascendancy and the persistence of ‘carrying thinking’ by illuminating how contemporary rationalities of ‘capacity thinking’ are echoed in conceptions of planetary boundaries, circular economy, as well as right-wing and techno-libertarian visions of economic and ecological futures.